With brands pouring more budget into short-form video, timing is no longer just a nice-to-have, it’s a lever. Adobe Express just released an exclusive analysis of over 24,000 YouTube Shorts from 280 content creators across 12 verticals, revealing the precise days and times that drive the most engagement.
What’s interesting here is that the most popular day to publish YouTube Shorts isn’t the day that you can expect to get the most engagement!
- Tuesdays dominate performance: Shorts get an average of 9.86M views and 254K likes.
- 4 pm is the new golden hour, with Shorts earning a staggering 24.9M views and 797K likes.
- Off-peak posts (outside 8–10am) earn 80% more likes, 40% more views, and nearly double the comments.
- Entertainment Shorts lead the charge, making up 48% of the most-viewed content.
YouTube Shorts creators often follow rhythms that feel tried-and-true. 20% are published on Thursdays, followed by Wednesdays (16%) and Tuesdays (15%). The most common time to publish is in the mornings between 7am and 12pm. When considering day and time together, Thursday at 8am was the single most popular time slot across the board. It’s a compelling trend, but popularity doesn’t always equal the best performance.
Most popular time for Likes on YouTube Shorts
Adobe Express discovered that Tuesday had the highest average number of likes on YouTube Shorts. While it’s not the most popular posting day (which is Thursday), it could be a sweet spot for creators who want their content to resonate with their audiences. Shorts uploaded at 4om also earned the highest average likes, suggesting that late afternoon may be a prime engagement window.
When combining both day and time, Saturday at 4pm emerged as a peak moment for getting the most likes. Length was another factor affecting how many likes a posting gets. YouTube Shorts that are 40 seconds or longer were 33% more engaging than shorter ones.
Most popular time for Views on YouTube Shorts
The most viewed YouTube Shorts had 396.2 million views, accumulating them at a rate of 16.5 million views per hour. Entertainment content made up 48% of the most viewed Shorts.
Similar to likes, Tuesday showed strong performance for views, leading as the day Shorts received the most average views. And 4pm was also the golden hour for view counts.
The optimal day and time combination was Saturday at 4pm, which proved to be the single best time for average views.
Benefits of off-peak posting
So you might be thinking Tuesday and Saturday at 4pm are the times to launch your YouTube Shorts, but it’s not quite that simple.
Shorts posted during non-peak hours — specifically midnight–7am and 11am–11am — outperformed those shared during the peak posting window of 8am–10am On average, off-peak posts earned over 219,000 likes and 8.7 million views, compared to about 121,000 likes and 6.2 million views during peak hours.
Comment activity followed the same pattern. Off-peak posts averaged 746 comments, while those uploaded during peak times brought in just 418. With fewer Shorts competing for attention, audiences may be more inclined to watch, react, and join the conversation.
So if your goal is to boost reach and spark engagement, consider posting outside the typical morning rush. Timing your content for off-peak hours could give it more room to shine.
